


Our Time on the Edge

by monimala



Category: St. Elmo's Fire (1985)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, POV Female Character, POV Second Person, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-08
Updated: 2012-07-08
Packaged: 2017-11-09 11:09:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/454770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monimala/pseuds/monimala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> It's almost like being in some kind of time warp, except that he doesn't have a mullet and an earring anymore, and you're not dressed like you're Amish.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Time on the Edge

The universe has a bizarre sense of humor, or maybe just a really ironic one. The first time you see Billy Hicks in over a decade is in the adult contemporary section of the Union Square Virgin; he's flipping through CDs and muttering to himself about being shelved next to "Kenny Fucking G." He even pulls out the album, whirling theatrically to show it to the startled patrons around him. "Can you believe this?" he demands of a few kids with baggy pants who probably wouldn't recognize him if he was wearing a sign. "On what planet do I belong anywhere next to Kenny G?" You try to choke back a laugh, clutching your Indigo Girls box set to your chest, but he seems to hear it anyway. His gaze lights on you... and then his eyes light up. "On the planet where Hicks comes after 'G' in the alphabet," you supply, even as he drops his CD, closes the distance between you, and lifts you up off the ground with a boyish whoop.

"Wendy! Jesus Christ, Wendy, what are you doing here?"

It takes you a minute to catch your breath, after being whirled around like a dervish and set down just as off-kilter. "I live here," you tell him. "I moved to the city after grad school and never left."

You knew he was here, of course. Living in Brooklyn or something when he wasn't on tour. But after those initial post-college years where everyone promised "I'll call you," and "We won't lose touch," everyone seemed to drift off to their own lives, and tracking down the man you lost your virginity to --oh, thank you, New York Gods, for your irony-- just didn't seem like a priority.

He waits for you to pay for your CDs, and then you end up braving the perpetual crush of people outside in Union Square together. They always seem to congregate right on the curb by the crosswalk. Billy keeps one arm hooked through yours the whole time, and you end up at a little British teashop on Greenwich that you love. The owner is more than a little scary, and though she recognizes you and offers you a rare smile, she gives Billy the hairy eyeball almost instantly, and the two of you dissolve into fits of laughter. "Good to know my reputation precedes me," he chuckles, sliding into the seat closest to the wall and shrugging off his long, wool coat.

After ordering pots of tea --Assam for him, chamomile for you-- and scones, you both fall into catch-up mode. Where you live, what you do, who you still keep in touch with. It turns out Billy doesn't live in Brooklyn anymore, but in Hell's Kitchen, because "I couldn't resist the symbolism." Whatever that means.

"How's Melody...? Do you see her?" you ask, hoping the question isn't too awkward.

"She's sixteen, can you believe it?" He beams with the pride only a father can have, flipping through his wallet for the obligatory photos and sliding it across the table. "Felicia started out doing just holidays and eventually Mel made the decision herself to expand visitation. She's in a band. Fuck." The pride gets a tinge of wryness. "I told her if she *ever* meets a guy like her old man, I'll kill her. Actually, I'll kill him, and then her. What about you? Married?"

"Divorced," you admit, automatically glancing down at your hand. It's been years, but you still expect to see the ring, or at least the faded white line indicating where it used to be.

"Because it wasn't me?" he teases. The familiar twinkle in his eyes used to devastate you, make you feel awkward and needy and completely out of your depth. Now, it just elicits a warm glow somewhere in the pit of your stomach.

"Because it wasn't *me*," you correct, gently. "I spent too many years doing what other people wanted, and I wasn't ready to compromise with Jack. So we went our separate ways."

"Speaking of compromises, I quit smoking," he reveals, tapping his arm as if to show you the Patch. "Four years. Finally figured out that a sax player with no lung capacity isn't worth shit."

"I'm proud of you, Billy," you say, and it's eerie, because just the words make you think that, all of a sudden, you're 21 again and the president of the Billy Hicks Fan Club.

"You always were," he murmurs, as if he's picking up on your line of thinking. "Even when I didn't deserve it."

Especially when you didn't deserve it, you want to say, but don't. "It was a long time ago," you tell him instead. "I've changed a lot. You can't live alone for 15 years without growing up and seeing a little bit of the world and letting that impact who you are."

"Well, you can. But you'd need a lot of cats." Billy frowns, before adding, "Jules has a lot of cats. Like… seven. It was a little weird to count them all on the Christmas card."

You got that card, too. You smother a laugh against your fingers and arch an eyebrow, calling up the most imperious expression you can muster. "I actually have one cat, Billy." Because he's tiny, loyal and persistent, you named him Kirby. "Is that okay with you or am I doomed to spinsterhood, too?"

The tone surprises him. Still surprises a lot of people you used to know. Sweet little Wendy Beamish and sarcasm? Heaven forbid. But if there's one thing working in Social Services for as long as you have has taught you, it's how to grow a seriously thick skin and sharpen your tongue.

"God, Wendy." He shakes his head, either marveling at your attitude or just at you in general. "I still can't believe it. After all this time. Just to run into you like this."

Stranger things have happened. Especially in this city. But you know what he means. Staring across the table at him, stirring sugar into your tea, it's almost like being in some kind of time warp, except that he doesn't have a mullet and an earring anymore, and you're not dressed like you're Amish. Billy Hicks was your first love, your first lover. You'd be lying to yourself if you said you didn't think about him often. Mostly with fondness. Partially with mortification that only comes from being 36 years old and realizing how dumb you were as a kid.

He's still gorgeous, but there are circles beneath his eyes and lines around his mouth, and you wonder if he's been sleeping at all. And then a more pressing question arises: What would a hotshot jazz saxophonist be doing wandering around the Virgin and checking on where he's shelved? "Are you okay?" you wonder. Most of the conversation so far has revolved around you, and there must be a reason for that, besides his morbid curiosity. "You can tell me, Billy. You can tell me anything. That's one thing that *hasn't* changed."

His smile is tight and hollow, and you know he's not going to tell you the truth even before the "I'm fine," passes his lips. You calmly break apart your scone, putting clotted cream and jam on one half and popping it into your mouth. The ball is in his court until further notice. And, sure enough, after a few minutes of quiet sipping and chewing, Billy shifts in his seat and turns his gaze out the window. "Everything's changing," he says, finally. "I don't know. Just something in the air, Wendy. Like nothing's ever going to be the same." Haltingly, he tells you about how his star is no longer on the rise, how he hasn't had a paid gig in months, and he knew he was done for when he sat in on a gig with some doe-eyed girl from Texas who sang like an angel. "She's about to take the world by storm. And me…? I've hit the rocks."

"Bullshit," you interrupt, sending his eyebrows rocketing into his hairline with shock. Yes, you know the word, and several others that are even more profane. "This is New York, Billy. The most amazing city in the world. And you're telling me that opportunity has passed you by? Come on." You tick off a dozen things he could do with his talent, including teaching private sax lessons and playing wedding receptions… which makes him shudder with disgust. "And none of that is *failure*. It's just another permutation of your life," you chide. "It's not giving up. It's just moving forward."

"Like you did?" He reaches for your hand, his thumb stroking your fourth finger where it curls around the side of the teacup. "Have you really let it all go, Wendy?"

Oh, so you're back to this again, are you? The idea that you never got over him, and have been waiting your entire life for him to walk back into it? Where before it was a tease, this time you sense desperation in his question. As if he really needs to believe that you still need him after all these years. Maybe because, to him, it's a constant in the middle of his chaos and uncertainty. "Oh, Billy," you sigh, gently disentangling from his grip. "I will love you till the day I die, but I buried all my expectations the morning you left. I don't need you to be my hero, to save me and make me whole."

His mouth trembles and there is a sudden sheen of dampness in his eyes that he dashes away with the back of his hand. His laughter comes out ragged, with a huff of breath. "Maybe… just maybe… Wendy Beamish… I ran into you tonight because I need you to save *me*? Make *me* whole?"

You've heard a lot of lines in your lifetime. None so poetic as this one. That you're going to sleep with him is inevitable, you think. It was probably inevitable from the instant you saw him. You gave Billy your innocence, and now he wants to search for his. The way he looks at you, the way he says those words, makes your blood heat and you gesture for the waitress to get your check.

You live on 16th and 3rd, so the walk isn't bad, even in the cold. You huddle together, hands in each other's pockets, laughing at a dozen memories from Georgetown until you're safely in your second floor walk-up. It's a junior one bedroom that you stumbled upon via sheer luck four years ago and it's just now starting to feel like home.

Billy throws his coat over the back of the papasan. You hang yours up and put away your shopping bag. He prowls the living area restlessly, taking in how it widens into the alcove that holds your double bed and a few bookshelves. He pokes his head into the small separate kitchen, too, and makes you laugh when he puts on an impromptu puppet show with the cow-shaped salt and pepper shakers someone gave you as a house-warming gift.

What you're actually here for looms between you with all the subtlety of a skyscraper.

The first time was awkward, even if you do remember it through a soft focus lens, with an accompanying cheesy love song. Billy came too fast and you didn't come at all. It wasn't until the third time that you really got the hang of it, learning how to fit into each other's bodies, matching his angles to your curves. It was the '80s and you didn't care about anything besides having him inside you, so unbelievably close, laughing and loving through it without any thought to condoms or the Pill.

"I'm clean, Wendy," he tells you, once again picking up on the direction of your thoughts. You can't help it. All those things that nobody worried about then have come back to bite so many of your friends in the now. "I get tested every few years."

"So do I," you say, automatically, before you fully realize the implication… the implication that's exactly what it sounds like, considering Billy slept with half the Eastern seaboard before he ever got to you. But it's too late for tact, because the words are out. And you flinch.

"Wendy." Billy turns ghostly pale and he lets you go, stumbling back a few feet and running his hands convulsively through his hair, until it sticks up in demented tufts. "Wendy, if I ever…" His eyes are so full of agony; it's like the sky is crying. "I would *die* if I hurt you," he stammers. "I would *die*."

You close the space between you without another thought, taking him by the shoulders as if to shake away his demons. "It's okay. It's okay, Honey, I know." His whole body is racked with shivers and you pull him flush against you, kissing his brow, his cheek and his jaw. He clings to you like a lifeline until the tremors stop. Until he's whispering, "I'm sorry," over and over against your hair. Apologizing for the follies of a boy he hasn't been in fifteen years. "I forgive you," says the girl you used to be, before the woman you are kisses away the last of his regrets.

You take the lead without hesitation, cupping his face in your palms and claiming his tongue. He tastes like strawberry jam and something intrinsically Billy. Reckless and sexy and broken. He makes a strangled noise low in his throat and then he's backing you towards the couch, hands diving under your sweater and deftly unhooking your bra.

This time, there are no candles, no adolescent fantasies to fulfill. It's just you and one of your oldest friends chasing away the shadows. You straddle his hips; work the button-fly of his jeans, giggling when he's surprised by how voraciously you've taken to the act of sex. An ex-husband and a good vibrator have proven to be wonderful teachers, but you don't tell him that. Instead, you murmur, "Fuck me, Billy," and he groans, growing impossibly hard in your grip. He's exactly as big as you remember him being; it's nice to know not all of your recollections got the Hollywood treatment. And when you tell him that, flicking your thumb across the engorged tip of his cock, he nearly hits his head on the back of the sofa.

"Who taught you how to talk like that?" he pants. He doesn't need to know it was the same person who taught you how to stroke him like you are right now. He doesn't need your sexual résumé; he just needs to reap the benefits. And you... well, you don't really know what you need besides his beautiful mouth and the telltale rustle of a condom wrapper and the sensation of sinking onto his latex-sheathed cock inch by inch.

He clutches your shoulders; his blunt nails leaving marks that you'll cherish in the days ahead. And you rock into his hips, in search of the rhythm that he thinks he's lost. Somewhere in the middle of it all, your gazes lock and hold. And something breaks apart inside you, because 15 years of growing up and growing away from this man haven't left you as untouchable and above him as you thought. You are not just his savior, his second, third or fourth chance, doing him a favor. This is about far more than that. It always has been.

Billy Hicks was your first love, your first lover. You'd be lying to yourself if you said you didn't think about him often. Mostly with fondness. Partially with mortification that only comes from being 36 years old and realizing how dumb you were as a kid.

But if you're honest with yourself loving him was one of the smartest things you ever did. Bringing him home tonight ranks a close second.

In the early hours of the morning, when you've finally moved to the bed and Billy's sprawled across you like a man-shaped blanket, you kiss the top of his head and thank this crazy city for its sense of humor. For its beauty and magic and music… and for Kenny Fucking G.

\--end--

January 31, 2010


End file.
